


skin tingles

by niniadepapa



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 19:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2121147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niniadepapa/pseuds/niniadepapa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>when friends tweet you about the first awkward hand holding scene between emma and hook and this happens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	skin tingles

**Author's Note:**

> i blame mai and jackie.

He was doing it  _again_. 

She had no idea why he did it, but it was slowly but surely driving her  _crazy_. 

 

She first took notice of it one day he had showed up at Granny’s and he had insisted on walking her to the station. They had been wandering aimlessly for a while, bickering about something stupid - surprise, surprise, - though she still didn’t see why asking him about pirate hats was so insulting, really - look at Jack Sparrow - wait,  _Captain_  Jack Sparrow - when he had stepped back and smoothly settled himself at her left. She had only stared at him curiously for a moment, waiting for an answer, but then had shrugged it off, the bumping of his shoulder against hers and the slight brush of their fingers maybe making something flutter in her stomach. But nothing more. 

But then he had done it again. And again. And  _again_. 

She realized he did it when there were people around too: if her parents happened to be with them, or Ruby and Whale decided to join along with Ariel and Eric or occasionally Belle, Emma mentally counted inside her head until he would awkwardly shuffle to stand to her left. She had really tried to brush it off at first, pushing it to a corner of her mind and blaming it on some weird pirate quirk or something, but in the end it was just plain annoying. It made her think of those bitchy girls in high school that pushed her out of their way and took her place when she was walking down the hall and she may have been talking to some guy or whatever. She  _knew_  that was not at all Hook’s intention - really, the boy-stealing scheme wasn’t up his alley, or so she imagined, especially considering he was sort of involved with her.

God, it sounded awkward.

It was just… they hadn’t had the talk, but they kissed… sometimes. They hung out, and he listened to her when she needed to vent. He spent time with her and Henry and her parents. He was kind of her person, but, you know, not acting like… ‘persons’. 

They were probably acting like idiots, ignoring the pink pirate elephant in the room that screamed ‘couple’, but whatever. Ignorance and denial? Bliss.

But it may have been her being hungry and a little tired from her night patrol that, when she noticed that he had done it  _again_ , she couldn’t take it anymore. As soon as he casually stopped as if he was checking out something at the bakery’s display to, sure enough, come and round her so he stood at her left, she stopped in her tracks, glaring at him. 

“Okay, what the hell is wrong with you?”

He startled, obviously not expecting her reaction. “I beg your pardon?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, intent on finding out what the hell was going on. “I have been trying not to say anything but this is just weird.”

“What is?”

“Your hugging my left side like a monkey to a tree.”

He was good, she would give him that, but she had a fucking gold medal at reading people, especially him. So it didn’t come as a surprise that he tried to mask his sudden unease, the startled gasp that left his lips, and instead tried to appear insulted. “I do no such thing.”

“Sure you don’t,” she scoffed, shaking her head. Fixing him with a glare, she questioned, “What is your problem?”

His hand - the right one, Lord help him if he tried to scratch his face with the hook - came up to pinch the bridge of his nose, voice coming out tired all of a sudden. “It is nothing, Swan - forget it.”

“Oh, so it is not a way to avoid… something?”

Hook met his eyes, and she saw the confusion in them. “What do you mean?”

She couldn’t blame him, she was being kind of cryptic, but she had been pondering a possible explanation for his behavior - the only one she had seemed to come up with, and she had no idea if it even made sense. Sensing this whole situation was slowly snowballing until it climaxed in a yelling match, she shrugged unapologetically. “I don’t know.  _You_  tell me.”

“For someone so perceptive you’re proving to be extremely dense, my dear,” he said as a way of explanation, rolling his eyes.

She inhaled sharply through her nose.  _Ouch_. “Oh, so you wanna be a prick about it? Why am I not surprised?”

“That’s rich coming from you, princess. As soon as someone as much as tries to get closer to you, you close up.”

“I don’t…”

“Hey guys. What’s up?”

Time for a break in the so-called yelling match then. Both she and Hook turned to find Henry looking up at them, smiling like it was the most normal thing to run into his mom and her… pirate person screaming at each other for no good reason. Faking a smile - though she was pretty sure it was more like a grimace, really - she put her arm over Henry’s shoulder, crashing him to her side. 

_The side Hook apparently can’t stop hovering_ , she grumbled to herself.

“Hey kid. Nothing, Hook and I were just…”

“…exchanging farewells, I have something to do. Nice to see you, Henry,” he cut her smoothly. He tipped his head in Henry’s direction, a smile pulling at the corner of his lips when her son mimicked him in response. He then looked back at her, and faked a bow, his leather coat swirling around him. “Swan.”

And just like that, he left. Emma was too stunned for a moment, open-mouthed, wondering what the hell that had been about. 

“…okay, what were you fighting about?”

She raised her eyebrows, meeting Henry’s expectant gaze. “Why would you assume we were fighting?”

He gave her a knowing look. This kid was too smart for his own good. “Please. I’m 11 but not stupid.”

She gave up, putting her hands up. Seriously, she was  _so done_. “Okay. It’s just - I told him he was acting weird.”

“Weird how?,” he asked, frowning at her. Huh. Guess being a pirate from another realm wearing leather and a hook for a hand and speaking like he had straight jumped out from a novel was already considered weird per se.

“He always does this thing, like, very smoothly and moves so he’s standing at my left and gets super close.” She shook her head, trying to clear her head. “It is stupid, really - I don’t know if it’s a pirate thing, or an Enchanted Forest thing, or if he wants to, you know, distance himself from the rest because the only one he feels comfortable with is me? I thought he got along pretty well with everybody but maybe he doesn’t and he just thinks no one will give him a chance and still see him like the asshole who shot Belle and stole the bean, or…”

“Mom.” She paused her babbling - and the entire word-vomiting rant she had been obsessing over lately whenever she tried to piece together that odd bit of Hook’s behavior - to stare at Henry, who looked like he was trying really hard not to pet her hair and give her a cookie. 

Smart kid - and a bit patronizing when he wanted to be. Surely Regina’s influence. 

“What?” 

“I think Hook just wants to take your hand.”

…okay, she hadn’t been expecting  _that_. 

_At all._

“…what?,” she almost screeched, and Henry just rolled his eyes at her obvious distress, as if he almost found it amusing. 

“You really didn’t expect him to offer you his hook for you to hold, did you?”

Okay, hold up, wow, no, what even - his hook? “Why would he…” She stopped herself, thinking it over in her head.  Could it be? That he wanted to freaking  _take her hand_ , like, you know, a _boyfriend_  would?

Good God.

“You guys are ‘something’,” Henry insisted, air-quoting the word, and she felt her cheeks burn at the realization that even her son found their situation ridiculous. The not labeling their…  _dalliance_  was immature enough, she guessed, but she couldn’t really help it. “It isn’t so surprising to believe he would want to show some affection.”

Emma stood speechless, avoiding her son’s scrutinizing eyes. Finally, as she hadn’t even tried to come up with a fitting answer - she was still too baffled for something apart from shrieking and freaking - he sighed. “You adults have no idea, do you?”

_Not a fucking clue, kid._

…yeah, not really the PG version for her son. “Not really,” she amended, and was rewarded by his answering giggle.

——————————————————————————————————————————

They didn’t talk about it the next time they met, but well, it didn’t really come up, just because they were sitting at Granny’s and he didn’t have the chance to make his move, she guessed. In fact, she was a bit relieved by that, because she had no idea what to do or how to react to it. Should she try to take his? What if he didn’t even try to take hers again? What if she had pushed him away by snapping at him about it?

She hadn’t gone to anybody with her concerns, of course - she could only imagine how  _that_ would go. She guessed that it’d involve loads of giggling and teasing from Ruby, an understanding cocking-head-to-the-side slash my-baby-girl-has-girl-trouble from Mary Margaret and some excited chatter from Ariel, even possibly some paralleling to any cheesy book from Belle. Nope, she was definitely not up for that. Hell, it had been embarrassing enough that it had been  _her son_  who had discovered what she had been trying to piece out for weeks now.

How pathetic was it that her 11 year-old son was the one giving her dating advice, anyway?

_Not dating. You know. You are just… persons. Together._

As frazzled as she had been at the possibility of it happening again, she realized she had not been the least prepared for it when he, once again, positioned himself at her left. Her eyes went down to stare at his right hand, the rings glinting in the weirdly enough sunny morning in Storybrooke, and she almost expected it to jump and clamp itself around her fingers, trapping them together. 

He noticed her panicked face, and seemed to catch on rather quickly. But, well, he  _was_  Captain Hook. He loved a challenge. Tentatively, his fingers inched closer to hers, brushing for a brief moment before, with a shuddering breath, went to take her hand in his, but dropping them before he even had slipped his fingers through hers. 

They both had stopped walking, frozen on their spot in the middle of the street, on their way to the docks to check on his ship after he had gone into town to get supplies. They must have looked pretty stupid, just standing there, staring at their nearly interlocked hands like they were holding a bomb instead. She timidly raised her head to observe him, oddly reassured by the fear clouding his face.

“You’re as bad at this as I am, aren’t you?”

He snorted. “I have  _one_  hand, Swan, I fear I’m way behind you on the hand-holding department.”

“Stop being a baby and do it,” she commanded, and with a tug of her left hand, she finally laced their fingers together.

And  _goddammit_ , it felt good. And nobody had spontaneously combusted or anything, so that was a plus.

She noticed the way his whole posture seemed to relax after she had taken his hand, and soon was smirking at her, as if the whole thing had been a piece of cake.  _Right_. “A baby? If you’d let me I’d show you that I’m certainly a grown man.”

This hand-holding thing had its perks, though. She clamped her fist over his hand, almost crushing it, rising an eyebrow when she noticed with smug satisfaction his wince. “You wanna lose this one too, pal?”

“You wouldn’t want that, Swan - how would I show you how capable I am just one-handed if you mangled my…ow!”

She groaned loudly, exasperated. She had known the innuendos were included in the pirate package, but  _come on_. “Fine, be an idiot, see if I care,” she declared haughtily, spinning on her heel and dragging him in the direction they were supposed to go and ready to leave.

…Or, you know,  _run into a lamppost_.

Which she avoided thanks to said joined hands, when he pushed her back before colliding against it. All breath leaving her in a whoosh, she almost missed the bark of laughter that Hook had let out, taking their hands before them and showing them like they were some trophy. “And deprive us all from you acting like a fool? No bloody way.” Still laughing - and God, he had motive to do so, she was so embarrassing,  _dammit_ , - he carefully guided her so they continued their way to his ship. “We should probably tell your father he has competition on the prince charming category…”

She snorted under her breath and let him put their linked hands at the side of her waist, leading her as they walked and went on joking about her failure at walking a completely straight surface without finding something to run into. She almost missed the tickling of his fingers at her waist, or the glinting in his eyes when she pulled closer to him - even if it was just to shove at him for being a complete ass.

Maybe the hand-holding thing wasn’t  _that_  bad after all.


End file.
